The sixth century tyrants of Athens and Samos may be regarded with some probability as rulers who had come to their power by means of their wealth. Before proceeding to deal with the earlier Greek tyrants, as to whose antecedents the evidence is necessarily much more meagre and indecisive, it will be found convenient to turn our attention for a while to Egypt and Lydia. In both these states we shall find evidence, some of it very positive, that from the end of the eighth century onwards the kings were gaining and maintaining their power by means of their wealth. With both these states the Greeks of the seventh century were in close touch; from both they learned and borrowed much, since Egypt and the East had still much to teach them. The history therefore both of Egypt and Lydia is closely relevant at this period to that of the Greek world that they adjoined. It gives a context to the disconnected fragments of evidence that will have to be dealt with in some of the succeeding chapters, and makes it possible to fit them together into something resembling a significant whole.

Like Greece, Egypt had been through a dark period during the first three centuries of the first millennium B.C. After about two centuries of Libyan rulers (XXIInd and XXIIIrd dynasties) whose energies were often devoted to dealing with rival kings while subject princes spent the resources of the country in feuds among themselves, Egypt had fallen during the eighth century under an Ethiopian dynasty which she changed occasionally for Assyrian rule. But early in the seventh century, Egypt recovered its material prosperity. By the middle of the next century it is said to have been more prosperous than ever it was before^[447], and this prosperity is reflected in the law of Amasis (570–526 B.C.) against unemployment^[448] as also in the organization of industry into “more or less sharply defined classes or guilds^[449],” in improved business methods and mechanical processes. The forms of legal and business documents became more precise^[450]; the mechanical arts of casting in bronze on a core and of moulding figures and pottery were brought to the highest pitch of excellence^[451]. Inscriptions of this epoch found in the gold-mining regions prove that the work of the ancient kings was taken up with renewed ardour^[452]. The ports of Egypt were thrown open to the commerce of all the nations^[453]. Strong fleets were maintained both in the Mediterranean and in the Red Sea^[454]. An attempt was made by Pharaoh Necho (610–594 B.C.) to anticipate the Suez Canal by one connecting the Nile with the Red Sea^[455]; and the exploits of Vasco da Gama were anticipated by a Phoenician ship that was sent out by this same Pharaoh Necho and circumnavigated Africa^[456]. In these activities of Necho Sayce^[457] sees an attempt to make Egypt the chief trading country of the world.

These great developments took place under a single dynasty, the XXVIth, which came from Sais on one of the western arms of the Delta^[458]. "Psammetichus I (664–610) rose to power" The history of this dynasty can be traced back at Sais to the eighth century B.C., but the first of the family to rule all Egypt was Psammetichus (Psamtek), who reigned from about 664 to 610. Necho the father of this Psammetichus and grandfather of the Necho mentioned just above had been king or governor of Sais and Memphis under the Assyrian king Assurbanipal^[459]. Psammetichus was driven into war and foreign politics to free his country from foreign invaders. The details of his warlike achievements do not here concern us. What does here concern us is to observe how he secured the power that enabled him to set about them.

Early in his career, Psammetichus, so Herodotus informs us^[460], had been one of twelve kings who had each received a twelfth of the country to reign over^[461]. "according to Herodotus by means of Greek and Carian mercenaries," One day some bronze-clad Ionian and Carian freebooters were driven to Egypt by stress of weather. Psammetichus “made friends with the Ionians and Carians, and by great promises persuaded them to join him: and having persuaded them he thereupon, in conjunction with his supporters in Egypt and the mercenaries, put down the (other eleven) kings, and became master of all Egypt^[462].”

The man who among twelve or more rivals^[463] secured the monopoly of Greek and Carian mercenaries must have been a man of outstanding wealth. But this is not all our information about him. A fuller account is preserved in Diodorus^[464]:

When the twelve had ruled Egypt for fifteen years it befel that the kingdom passed into the hands of one of them through the following causes. Psammetichus of Sais, who was one of the twelve kings, and ruler of the parts beside the sea, used to provide cargoes (f??t?a) for the merchants, and particularly for Phoenicians and Greeks; by such means he disposed profitably of the products of his own land and secured a share of the products of the other nations, and enjoyed not only great wealth (e?p???a?) but also friendship with nations and princes.

Could it be more plainly stated that Psammetichus owed his throne to his wealth and his wealth to trade?

The commercial origin of Psamtek’s power can only be questioned by questioning the value of our authorities. The rest of this chapter will be devoted to showing that there is no reason for doing this, while there is much to confirm the passages just quoted.

Herodotus and Diodorus^[465] had both visited Egypt and are among our best authorities. At first sight indeed they do not seem quite in agreement. But the story they tell is essentially the same. The difference is one of emphasis. Herodotus seizes on a single incident and makes much of the description of the Ionians and Carians as men of bronze. The point was worth emphasizing; for from the military point of view the first appearance of the heavy-armed hoplite in Egyptian history marked an epoch^[466]. Diodorus contradicts Herodotus only in stating that it was not an accident that led Psammetichus to employ these foreign hoplites^[467]. The rest of his narrative only supplements Herodotus, and the silence of Herodotus is no reason for thinking that the later historian was not drawing on good and early sources^[468]. Even Herodotus could not incorporate in his history every scrap of knowledge that he possessed, and for Egypt in the seventh century there may well have been contemporary documents which were not consulted by Herodotus but were by Diodorus. Diodorus’ account has in fact been accepted by a considerable number of modern scholars^[469]. "Cp. Strabo on the Fort of the Milesians" They point out that it agrees with the statement of Strabo about the Fort of the Milesians^[470] that “in the days of Psammetichus the Milesians sailed with 30 ships and put in at the Bolbitine mouth, and disembarking built the foundation just mentioned.”

There is one difficulty in this passage of Strabo. Psammetichus is described in it as the contemporary of Cyaxares king of the Medes, who reigned from 624 to 584 B.C., so that the Psammetichus referred to might be Psammetichus II (594–589). But Psammetichus in Strabo appears elsewhere always to mean the first and most important king of that name. Cyaxares too both from his date and his nationality is an odd person for a Greek writer to quote in order to indicate the date of an Egyptian king^[471]. Hirschfeld is therefore probably right in rejecting this parenthesis as a learned but unintelligent gloss^[472].

The Bolbitine mouth of the Nile is near the great lake and marshes of Bourlos^[473]. Psammetichus I, before he overcame his rivals in Lower Egypt, is said by Herodotus^[474] to have spent a period of exile in the marshes, and the marshes are shown by the context to have lain near the sea^[475]. Thus quite apart from Diodorus, by simply comparing Herodotus and Strabo, a case may be made for thinking that the arrival of the bronze men from Ionia was not the accidental occurrence that Herodotus, after his way, makes it out to have been, but that it had some close connexion with the Milesians’ Fort.

That Psammetichus made it his policy to cultivate “friendship with nations and princes^[476]” in Asia Minor is sufficiently shown by the famous clay cylinder of Assurbanipal, king of Assyria (about 668–626 B.C.), which states^[477] that

Gyges King of Lydia, a district which is across the sea^[478], a remote place, of which the kings my fathers had not heard speak of its name... his forces to the aid of Psammetichus^[479] of Egypt, who had thrown off the yoke of my dominion, he sent.

The troops sent by Gyges may well have been none other than the Ionian mercenaries that made Psammetichus master of all Egypt^[480]. The alliance of Psammetichus with Gyges adds to the probability that the Egyptian was responsible for the foundation and development of the Milesian settlement in his country, since we know that Gyges had allowed the Milesians to establish the Hellespontine Abydos in what was then Lydian territory^[481].

If trade and riches raised Psammetichus to supreme power about the year 664 B.C. their influence was probably making itself felt in Egyptian politics at least some little while before that date. It will greatly strengthen the credibility of Diodorus on the early history of Psammetichus if this can be shown to have been in fact the case.

In 701 B.C. Sennacherib made his famous expedition against Palestine and Egypt, which were saved only by the plague sent upon the Assyrian host by the Angel of the Lord^[482]. According to the Egyptian version recorded in Herodotus the king of Egypt at this time was Sethon or Sethos, priest of Hephaestus. When the priest-king prepared to defend his country against the Assyrian “he was followed by none of the warrior class, but by hucksters and artizans and trades people^[483].” No king of the name of Sethon is known either to the Egyptian monuments or to the Greek and Latin lists of the kings of Egypt: his individuality has been the subject of much controversy. Later in this chapter reasons will be given for thinking that he was a prince of the same city and probably of the same house as Psamtek. The point to be emphasized here is the appearance just at this period of a Pharaoh who rests his power on the support of the mercantile and industrial classes.

Shortly before the days of Sethon another Egyptian king had won great fame by his recognition of the commercial tendencies of his age. This was Bocchoris the lawgiver, the solitary representative of the XXIVth dynasty, who appears for a time to have been recognized as king of Egypt until in 715 B.C. he was taken and burnt or flayed alive by his successor Sabacon, the first king of the Ethiopian (XXVth) dynasty^[484]. Diodorus says that the laws concerning contracts were attributed to Bocchoris and that he brought more precision into the matter of contracts. These statements are illustrated in a remarkable way by actual business documents that have come down to us from that time^[485].

A faience vase (fig. 12) with Egyptian scenes and the name of Bocchoris has been found in the Etruscan city of Tarquinii (Corneto)^[486]. It is held by Maspero and v. Bissing to be of pure Egyptian workmanship^[487]. Before its discovery the only evidence that Bocchoris had dealings with Europe was a reference in Plutarch^[488] which makes Bocchoris the judge in a case involving a Greek hetaera named Thonis. The Plutarch passage is doubtful evidence, but the Corneto vase suggests that already in the reign of Bocchoris the Egyptians and perhaps the king himself already had dealings with the trading nations of the North. This would fit well with the fact that Bocchoris was probably the predecessor of a king whose following consisted of hucksters and artizans and trades people. Bocchoris himself is said by Diodorus to have been reputed the most money-loving of men^[489].

Bocchoris’ father Tafnekht^[490], the first of the Saite princes (749–721 B.C.), is not known to have had any commercial interests or connexions. He is best remembered for his struggle against Pianchi, the first Ethiopian ruler to claim the throne of the Pharaohs. Of this struggle we have Pianchi’s own version, preserved in the famous Pianchi stele. While Tafnekht’s partizans were holding Memphis against the Ethiopians we hear of the employment of artizans and master masons as soldiers^[491]. The force however is stated to have been small, and it is not quite certain which side it was fighting on. Tafnekht, when the struggle went against him, retired to “the islands of the sea,” from whence he was able to negotiate with Pianchi in complete safety. Tafnekht himself described the situation not without tact in a letter to Pianchi: “To whatsoever city thou hast turned thy face, thou hast not found thy servant there, until I reached the islands of the sea, trembling before thy might, and saying ‘his flame is hostile to me.’” Eventually he submitted to the Ethiopians, but the submission seems to have been little more than nominal. Pianchi after receiving it is no more heard of in the Delta, and Tafnekht, to judge from the position held after him by his son Bocchoris, must have regained considerable power.

This may have had its base in naval supremacy. In the ancient list of thalassocrats, or states that successively ruled the waves, preserved to us by Syncellus, Eusebius and Jerome, the thalassocracy of Egypt falls at about this period. The only list that gives a precise date is that of Jerome, who puts it between 783 and 748 B.C. But the lists give the duration of each thalassocracy as well as absolute dates, and, as pointed out by J. L. Myres, if, instead of following the dates in years from Abraham, we calculate from the duration of the various thalassocracies, working backward from the period of the Persian wars, then the end of the Egyptian supremacy falls not in 748 but in 725^[492]. This dating makes Tafnekht a thalassocrat^[493], and explains how he was able to stand up against Ethiopia and the comparatively little damage that he sustained in spite of his military failures. In 715 we find another Ethiopian invading the Delta. The new prince of Sais, Bocchoris, presumably had no impregnable naval base. He was caught by the Ethiopian Sabacon and burnt or flayed alive^[494]. It is only when Psamtek formed alliances with the naval power that had replaced Egypt that the Saite princes fully regained the throne of the Pharaohs. This time their power had a sounder financial basis. It lasted for nearly a century and a half, and was then suddenly destroyed at its zenith by irresistible forces from without. On the reckoning which ends Egyptian naval supremacy in 725 B.C. the command of the sea when Psamtek was building up his power was in the hands of the Carians. It is precisely the Carians, along with the Milesians (who on the same reckoning were thalassocrats from 725 to 707 B.C.), who are said by all our ancient authorities to have been the basis of Psamtek’s power^[495].

If the king who ruled Egypt in 700 B.C. based his power on the trading and industrial classes, and a king who reigned twenty years earlier drew up the first commercial code in Egypt, while under the predecessor of this latter king Egypt had been supreme at sea, then by 670 B.C. conditions may well have been favourable for the commercial activities of Prince Psammetichus as described by Diodorus. "Tafnekht and probably Bocchoris and Sethon were (not kings of all Egypt but) princes of Sais, the city of Psammetichus, and belonged possibly to the same family as Psammetichus." But still more will this have been so if, as seems likely, both Sethon and Bocchoris were Saite princes of the same house as Psammetichus himself. The evidence is weak and inconclusive and for that reason difficult to summarize shortly. But the conclusions that it seems to point to are sufficiently important to make the attempt worth while.

One point seems fairly certain. Sethon was not the name of the conqueror of the Assyrians. Far more probably it was his title, a graecized form of the priestly title stm, stne, setmi, or satni^[496]. If his actual name is still doubtful, it is not for lack of suggestions. Sethon has been identified with (a) Khamois son of Ramses II^[497], (b) Shabaka, first king of the Ethiopian dynasty^[498], (c) Shabataka, successor of Shabaka^[499], (d) Taharqa, the Biblical Tirhaka^[500].

These identifications are all untenable, the first two on account of their dates, the rest because they make Sethon an Ethiopian. The warrior class that refused to support Sethon was Ethiopian in sympathy and not likely to desert an Ethiopian^[501]. The Sethon story glorifies the god Ptah (Hephaestus) of Memphis whereas the Ethiopian dynasty was devoted to Amon of Thebes^[502]. Griffith indeed suggests that Taharqa, who became king of Ethiopia and Egypt after 700 B.C., may at the time of Sennacherib’s defeat have represented the reigning king Shabataka in Lower Egypt, possibly with the title of priest of Ptah at Memphis^[503]. But there is no evidence for this having been so, and the picture of Taharqa as a king with no real soldiers at his back is not easily explained. On the contrary, as pointed out long ago by Lepsius^[504], the Biblical account^[505] appears to differentiate Pharaoh king of Egypt, whom it calls a broken reed, and Tirhaka king of Ethiopia. Similarly the Assyrian cylinders distinguish the kings of Egypt from the king of Miluhhi = Meroe = Ethiopia^[506]. The kings of Egypt who are thus referred to in the plural^[507] are plainly the rulers who at the period divided among themselves the lands of the Delta. The evidence all points to the conclusion that Sethon was one of these Delta chiefs, and presumably one of the most important of them, who acknowledged when forced to the suzerainty of Ethiopia or Assyria as the case might be, but did his best to keep clear of both great powers.

It is not improbable that Sethon belonged to the same family as Psammetichus, or at any rate that he was one of his predecessors on the throne of Sais. As starting-point for identifying him we have two facts. He was high priest of Ptah and he was alive in 701 B.C. A generation earlier the title Sem of Ptah was borne by Tafnekht, the chief of Sais from about 749 to 721 B.C.^[508] who led the Delta in its struggle against the Ethiopian Pianchi^[509]. A generation after Sethon the Assyrian cylinders^[510] describe Necho I (672–664 B.C.) the father of Psammetichus I as king not only of Sais but also of Memphis, the home of the Sethon tradition. A whole line of Saite rulers may be traced from Tafnekht onwards to Psammetichus I^[511]. All of these kings seem to have been something more than mere local rulers. The Pianchi stele makes it plain that Tafnekht aimed at becoming king at least of the whole of Lower Egypt. Bocchoris, the solitary king of the XXIVth dynasty, has been discussed already. Stephinates, Nechepsus, and Necho I appear in Africanus^[512] as the first three kings of dynasty XXVI, Psammetichus I coming fourth on the list. This statement is not discredited by the fact that other writers^[513] begin the dynasty with Psammetichus, while Eusebius^[514] puts Stephinates second, after Ammeris the Ethiopian. The three versions need not be mutually exclusive. Psammetichus was unquestionably the first of the Saites to win for his house the undisputed kingship of all Egypt. Hence the position generally assigned to him. In another way too he represented a new departure dynastically. He appears to have had family connexions with Ethiopia, and to have consistently aimed at an entente with the Ethiopian royal house^[515], who may have originally left him a free hand in the Delta from the desire to put a buffer state between Ethiopia and Assyria. Ammeris appears to be a Greek form of (Ta) Nut-Amen, Rud-Amen, or Amen-Rud, as the last of the Ethiopian kings is variously called^[516]. His appearance at the head of the XXVIth dynasty is a record of its Ethiopian connexions at this time^[517]. Africanus on the other hand, following Manetho, who was himself an Egyptian, records Psamtek’s ancestry in the direct line, and regards them, rather than any Ethiopian or Assyrian conquerors, as the lawful kings of the whole country^[518].

We are now in a better position for trying to identify the Sethon of Herodotus. This Saite dynasty was probably represented at the time of Sennacherib’s invasion by Stephinates. In Africanus his reign as first king of the XXVIth dynasty begins later, about 685 B.C. But this leaves a gap of 30 years with no recorded rulers of Sais and Memphis. Petrie’s explanation of this hiatus may be right. He thinks that Stephinates was probably son and successor of Bocchoris, but that after Bocchoris had been crushed and burnt by the Ethiopians in 715 B.C. the Saite power remained for some time a very broken reed. It is therefore not unlikely that the Stephinates of Manetho is the Sethon of Herodotus. No prince of the name appears on Egyptian monuments, but it has been plausibly suggested by Petrie^[519] that Stephinates is another Tafnekht with perhaps a sigma carried over by a Greek copyist from some word before his name. May we not guess what this word was? The first Tafnekht styled himself Sem of Ptah. The story of Satni Khamois^[520] shows that the title might be prefixed to the personal name. May not the strange form Stephinates be simply a Greek corruption of Satni Tafnekht or, as the name is sometimes transcribed, Tefnakhte^[521]?

A family connexion between Bocchoris and the later Saites is harder to establish. In support of it there are these facts: a Samtavi Tafnekht appears among the officials of Psamtek I; and, as the name Tafnekht was borne by the father and predecessor of Bocchoris^[522], this Samtavi Tafnekht has been recognized by Petrie^[523] as “doubtless a brother or cousin of the king.” The name Bakenranf itself is borne by another of Psamtek’s officials^[524], who may well be the Bocchoris son of Neochabis (Nekauba) mentioned by Athenaeus^[525], in which case he would have been an uncle of the reigning king^[526]. A direct connexion between the XXIVth and XXVIth dynasties has indeed been often suspected^[527]. They may stand to one another much as the English Lancastrians to the Tudors, separated by a period of eclipse and by the alliance with their rivals that was made in each case at the period of the restoration^[528].

It was probably during this period of eclipse that two popular stories of an earlier date were revised and received the shape in which they have come down to us^[529], and in which also they very possibly have a bearing on the history of the Herodotean Sethon. Their hero is Satni Khamois, son of Ramses II, who protects the king his father not by force of arms but by learning and magic.

Satni and Sethon both save their country where the military had failed. “The military chieftains of the chief ones of Egypt were standing before him (Pharaoh Usimares) each one according to his rank at court” when the Ethiopian came and threatened to “report the inferiority of Egypt in his country, the land of the Negroes.” And just as the captains and the courtiers proved helpless against the Assyrians in the days of Sethon, so did they against the Ethiopians in the days of Satni. This is the connecting link. The value of the Satni story for the history of Sethon is that it probably gives the atmosphere of the Sethon period, and that being so it helps to show that Sethon was already pursuing in many ways the Saite policy. Griffith for instance has observed that Satni is not presented in a very heroic light. But neither did any of the later Saites adopt the heroic pose. Nothing could be less like the grand monarque than Psamtek as pictured on a relief in the British Museum (above fig. 11)^[530] or Amasis as pictured in the pages of Herodotus^[531]. "recall in tone those told of Amasis, the last great Saite pharaoh." The same picture of Amasis is presented to us by the popular Egyptian stories. “Is it possible,” his courtiers ask, “that if it happens to the king to be drunk more than any man in the world, no man in the world can approach the king for business^[532]?”

Amasis, who was virtually the last of the Saites, is said to have been a man of the people^[533]. In the days of Sethon (Satni Tafnekhte), who perhaps heads the dynasty, a story of the Satni Khamois cycle told how that royal prince had personally visited the kingdom of the dead to learn the lesson of Dives and Lazarus^[534].

This concludes our examination of the history of the early Saites. It points to a consistent policy carried out with a remarkable combination of perseverance and versatility by a succession of rulers who may have been all of a single family and who certainly inherited in unbroken succession the same aims and the same essential method of attaining them, which was marked out for them by the place and the age they lived in. The Saite power grew to be supreme in Egypt while Ethiopians and Assyrians were contending for the land. From force of circumstances Sais had to be a military power. But the city owed its victory over its rivals between 721 and 670 B.C. first and foremost to the fact that it lay off the main track of war. As always when Egypt is involved in a great war it is the Eastern frontier that faces the main enemy. Sais was not always able to remain neutral, but lying right away in the West it was able at least to preserve and even to develop its commerce. It seized its opportunity and did so. The commercial code of Bocchoris, the hucksters and artizans and tradespeople of Sethon, and the cargoes of Psammetichus mark three great stages in the development, at the end of which, to quote the words of Maspero, “the valley of the Nile becomes a vast workshop, where work was carried on with unparalleled activity^[535].”

All these considerations lend a general probability to the narrative of Diodorus. They do not however specially confirm his statements about Psamtek’s trading with the Greeks. "Sais and Greece: foundation of Naukratis:" Greek commerce in Egypt in the days of the Saites is bound up with the name of Naukratis. “In the days of old,” says Herodotus^[536], “Naukratis was the only emporium in Egypt. There was none other.” This is an overstatement the origin of which will be seen when we come to deal with Amasis, the last but one of the Saite Pharaohs. But it implies that Naukratis eclipsed in importance all the other Greek trading stations in the country. It concerns us therefore to enquire what was the position of Naukratis in the days of Psammetichus. The question has been much disputed, especially since the eighties of the last century, when the site was excavated by Petrie and Ernest Gardner, and an account of the city was published by Petrie^[537] based on the literary sources and the results of the dig. As however some of the excavators’ archaeological conclusions have been challenged in many quarters, and as too some important archaeological evidence has only recently come to light, it may be worth while to summarise briefly the whole body of available material.

S. Jerome under the date Olymp. VII 4 (= 749 B.C.) says “the Milesians held the sea for eighteen years and built in Egypt the city of Naukratis^[538].” This statement agrees with Stephanus Byzantinus^[539] who calls Naukratis “a city of Egypt from the Milesians who were at that time supreme at sea.” Jerome and Stephanus are in harmony with Polycharmus^[540] who mentions a certain Herostratos as living at Naukratis and trading there and making long voyages in the XXIIIrd Olymp. (688 B.C.). But there are other writers who put the foundation later. Strabo, in the passage already referred to^[541], after describing the foundation of the Milesians’ Fort in the days of Psammetichus, continues: “and eventually they sailed up to the Saite nome and after defeating Inaros in a naval engagement they founded the city of Naukratis.” Lastly we have Herodotus^[542] stating that King Amasis (570–526 B.C.) “gave the city of Naukratis for Greeks who came to Egypt to dwell in,” an assertion that taken by itself might mean that Naukratis was founded in or after 570 B.C.^[543].

One further witness remains to be cited. Sappho wrote a poem reproaching her brother Charaxos for his devotion to a Naukratite hetaera named Doriche, with whom he had fallen in love when bringing Lesbian wine to Naukratis by way of trade^[544]. Among the papyri discovered by Grenfell and Hunt at Oxyrhynchus is a fragment containing sixteen mutilated Sapphic lines that almost certainly form part of this very poem^[545]. This means that Naukratis had already grown to be a pleasure city in the days of Sappho. Unfortunately her dates are not absolutely certain. A recent heresy brought her down to the reign of Amasis, but her floruit is generally given as the end of the seventh century, and there seem to be no sufficient reasons for not accepting that date.

Such is the literary evidence. No single item of it is decisive for an early occupation. Those which are definite can be questioned on point of fact. Sappho, whose evidence alone cannot be so questioned, may conceivably have written after 570. Combined however they make it probable that Naukratis rose to importance before the days of Amasis, and that Herodotus either confused the foundation of the city with that of the Hellenium^[546] or else did not intend his words “gave the city for Greeks who came to Egypt to dwell in” to imply that the Milesians were not there in force before the granting of this concession^[547]. Nevertheless, if we were limited to these literary sources, we could not be certain that where Diodorus seems to supplement his predecessors he was not merely adding details that they appear to imply. That is in fact the view of his narrative that some modern scholars apparently hold^[548]. Even if this were so, his additions would still have a certain value. If Diodorus, writing in the first century B.C., read between the lines of Herodotus the same unstated implications that have been read there in recent times, the coincidence points to the probability that this reading is not altogether wrong^[549].

That is as far as the texts take us. For further light we must look to archaeology. The new light began by increasing the perplexity. Petrie and Gardner both claimed that their excavations at Naukratis proved that it had been an important Greek city from the middle of the seventh century. But their main arguments were before long shown to be mistaken, and somewhat naturally it began to be assumed that they must be wrong in their conclusions.

Petrie^[550] based his arguments on the following observations. In the South part of the town he came across what he described as a scarab factory. There were numerous scarabs of Psamtek I, some of Psamtek II, and some that are probably of Apries; but none of Amasis. This seems to date the factory from well before 610 till after 589. Two feet beneath the factory was a burnt stratum of plain potsherds which must take us back a good way further, to at least 650 B.C. and probably earlier. The scarabs are imitation Egyptian and are taken by Petrie to be Greek. Further South, but also within the area of the burnt stratum, there is a large enclosure which he describes as surrounded by a strong brick wall. This he identified with the Hellenium, where Herodotus states that nine Greek cities had quarters assigned to them by Amasis. The dimensions of the bricks point to the early Saite period.

But in 1899 and 1903 further work was done at Naukratis by Hogarth which led him to the following conclusions. Petrie’s Hellenium is wrongly identified: it is not a walled enclosure: what Petrie took for walls is simply dÉbris of houses^[551]. The real Hellenium is to be found in what Petrie called the North Temenos^[552]. All Petrie’s evidence for a seventh century Naukratis comes from his scarab factory and his “Great Temenos,” both in the South part of the town, which is marked off by the occurrence there of the burnt stratum already referred to, and is shown by the finds to have been the Egyptian quarter of the town^[553]. The Greeks would naturally have separate quarters and occupy the Northern seaward end of the town^[554]. The scarabs, it is maintained, may well be of Phoenician make^[555].

The early arrival of the Greeks in Naukratis has been thought by Ernest Gardner to be confirmed by the numerous inscriptions, some painted but most (about 700) incised, on the pottery from the site^[556]. His arguments were criticized by Hirschfeld and Kirchhoff^[557] and have received little support^[558]. In some of them the lettering appears very crude and primitive; but this may be due simply to the fact that they are scratched by hasty and unskilled hands. They are not more archaic in appearance than some of the graffiti on vases from Rhitsona (Mykalessos) in Boeotia, of which the earliest must be dated in the middle of the sixth century, while others are contemporary with the finely written signatures of Teisias, who flourished at the end of the sixth century^[559]. Gardner is certainly wrong in thinking that the lettering of any of his inscriptions proves a seventh century date. But on the other hand, as well remarked by Edgar^[560], all that his critics have proved is that none of the inscriptions are necessarily so early. It by no means follows that they are necessarily not. But even supposing that the Naukratite graffiti are all sixth century, it does not follow that Greek Naukratis was of no importance till then. Both Gardner and his critics and likewise Mallet^[561] discuss the inscriptions with too little reference to the particular sherds on which they are inscribed. Thirty years ago, when the study of archaic Greek pottery was still in its infancy, this was perhaps inevitable. But in the present state of our knowledge the style of the potsherds would be a natural starting-point for dating the graffiti. Unfortunately the information on this point given by Gardner is inadequate, and the Naukratite finds have been so dispersed, that the task of collating sherds and graffiti must now wait for someone who can devote to it his undivided time and attention^[562].

Under these circumstances the best that can be done is to turn to some more recently excavated site. At Rhitsona the graffiti are nothing like so numerous as at Naukratis. Still they are numerous enough to justify certain observations. Some 50 examples have been found^[563]. All of them are on vases of the sixth century. Not one occurs on the numerous vases of the seventh century also found on the site^[564]. Plainly in Boeotia the fashion of scratching inscriptions on pottery only became prevalent^[565] in the sixth century. By itself therefore the absence of seventh century Greek graffiti from Naukratis would no more prove the absence of seventh century Greek worshippers^[566] than the corresponding absence from Rhitsona proves the absence of seventh century graves. At the other end of the period Edgar has already noticed that “the practice of dedicating vases in the temples appears to have almost died out at Naukratis before the middle of the fifth century^[567].” Edgar makes this remark at the end of his discussion of the inscriptions found in 1899. He is apparently thinking of inscribed dedications. Elsewhere, discussing the pottery discovered during the same dig, he mentions late red figure (i.e. about 450 B.C. onwards) as plentiful and black glazed pottery with stamped ornaments inside as particularly common. This latter ware dates from about the middle of the fifth century, but its main vogue is later still^[568]. Unfortunately not a sherd of this latter ware from Naukratis has been published, and not a word is said as to its distribution over the site. It was customarily offered to the dead at Rhitsona. It may well have been offered to the gods at Naukratis^[569]. There is of course no need to assume that the fashion of inscribing vases came in and went out simultaneously in Naukratis and Mykalessos. Boeotia was often behind the times, the Ionians of the seventh and sixth centuries generally ahead of them. But the Boeotian evidence shows how cautiously the Naukratite graffiti must be used for determining the date of the first Greek settlement.

Nor is there anything against a seventh century date in the absence of proto-Corinthian pottery^[570], which is so prevalent on the mainland in seventh century Greece. Edgar indeed^[571] infers from this absence that the fabric must have been obsolete by the time the Greeks came to Naukratis. This argument cannot be maintained. Kinch notices that there is none of this ware in a chapel that he excavated at Vroulia in Rhodes and in which he found a good deal of seventh century Greek pottery^[572]. Within the proto-Corinthian sphere of influence the style lasted on side by side with its successors all through the sixth century^[573]. This late proto-Corinthian ware is equally conspicuous by its absence from Naukratis. To push Edgar’s argument to its logical conclusion we should have to doubt the existence of Naukratis in the days of Amasis himself^[574]. Of the twelve Greek cities that had quarters in Naukratis in the days of Amasis only one, Aegina, belonged to European Greece. For the little known history of this Aeginetan settlement the absence of proto-Corinthian may be of significance. Beyond that it is not.

So far then all that has been proved is that both Petrie and Gardner fixed partly on the wrong material for deciding whether Naukratis was a Greek city of importance in the days of Psammetichus I. And even here on one important point the criticism of them has been shown to be ill founded. Edgar doubted the Greek character of the scarab factory: but not only are the types on some of the scarabs of Greek origin, but a faience fragment from the site shows fragments of a Greek inscription placed on it before the glazing of the vase^[575], a fact that can hardly be explained except by assuming a Greek maker.

A great advance was made by Prinz, whose monograph Funde aus Naukratis marked the first adequate treatment of the pottery. The earlier controversies about the date of Naukratis had made little appeal to the potsherds that from their mere numbers offer the most valuable evidence that has been yielded by the site. "(v) Positive evidence for an early foundation comes from the pottery actually found, viz.:" Edgar indeed observed in 1905^[576] that

it seems very doubtful whether all the fragments from the Naukratite temples can be as late as 570. There is at least a probability that some of the temples, especially that of the Milesian Apollo, date from the earlier [i.e. Hogarth’s Egyptian] days of the town.

But apparently the question was still regarded as “primarily a question of historical criticism^[577].” Since Prinz’s monograph appeared the pottery has taken the first place in the discussion, and it has now finally confirmed the earlier dating.

Much of the pottery belongs to the well-marked style known generally as Rhodian or Milesian^[578] (fig. 13) which had its chief vogue in the seventh century and the first part of the sixth^[579]. The crucial point however for our immediate enquiry is to know how long the style may have survived. When Prinz states^[580] that it is hard to imagine the style surviving as a competitor of the developed black figure (i.e. sixth century) style he is treading on dangerous ground. The earlier ware has a charm of its own. The excavations at Rhitsona show that, in Greece Proper at any rate, old styles of pottery often lasted long after a new style had been introduced, and that a white ground ware with no human figures^[581] maintained itself all through the sixth century. Against any such survival of the fabrics under discussion there is however the fact that at Berezan in South Russia it does not occur with Attic black figure of the style that spread all over the Greek world by the middle of the sixth century^[582]. At Naukratis itself it is said not to have been found in the Hellenium erected very soon after 570 B.C., a fact which points to its vogue having ended by about that date^[583]. On the other hand fragments, mainly of a later phase, have been found in Samos in a cemetery that can hardly go back beyond the middle of the sixth century^[584]. The Samian material is however scanty^[585] and hardly demands any modification of the conclusions suggested by the rest of the evidence.

Though generally known as Rhodian this ware was probably made at Miletus^[586]. It is the dominant ware in archaic Miletus^[587] and has been found all over the Milesian sphere of influence, including the East coast of the Aegean, Rhodes, Rheneia, the Black Sea, and to some extent Sicily and Italy (via Sybaris?). It has seldom been found outside it, scarcely any being recorded from Greece Proper. The occurrence at Naukratis in large quantities of what is probably seventh century Milesian pottery is distinctly in favour of a Milesian occupation in the reign of Psammetichus^[588].

Another fabric of the end of the seventh century and beginning of the sixth that is well represented at Naukratis is the so-called Fikellura^[589]. This ware is similar to the later phases of the “Milesian” that show full silhouettes, incisions, and a comparative absence of fill ornament. Its distinguishing mark is the zone of crescent-shaped ornament that never appears in the “Milesian” style. Its date is sufficiently established by its occurrence at Daphnae^[590], which had its Greek garrison removed by Amasis almost certainly in connexion with his concentration of Greeks in Naukratis^[591]. This ware is assigned by Boehlau to Samos^[592], but Perrot^[593] well observes how rash it is to draw wide general conclusions from the meagre finds published in Boehlau’s Aus ionischen und italischen Nekropolen.

Corinthian sherds are also fairly frequent at Naukratis^[594]. This ware prevailed in the seventh century and early sixth and survived till the end of the sixth century in certain stereotyped forms. Some of the examples from Naukratis appear to be fairly early; e.g. the aryballi with four warriors^[595] belong to a type that was very prevalent about 600 B.C. but had died out before Black Figure came in^[596].

The earliest examples of Attic pottery from Naukratis^[597] likewise go back to the very beginning of the sixth century. They belong to a series of amphorae called Netos amphorae from the name of a centaur painted on one of them in Attic lettering. Their general archaic appearance and the survival of the fill ornament show that they must be considerably earlier than the FranÇois vase or the earliest Panathenaic amphorae, which date from about 565 B.C. Prinz puts them back to about 600.

For dating the Greek settlement at Naukratis this probably imported ware is of less importance than a very distinctive style of painted pottery^[598] that was found there in far larger quantities than any of the fabrics just mentioned, and was almost certainly made by Greeks in Naukratis itself^[599].

For the dating of this pottery Naukratis offered no certain data. The decisive evidence is derived from Naukratite vases recently found in three other sites, Vroulia in Rhodes, Rhitsona (Mykalessos) in Boeotia, and Berezan in South Russia. Vroulia was excavated by Kinch in 1907 and 1908. The finds were fully and sumptuously published in 1914. They led him to believe that the site was occupied only from the first third of the seventh century B.C. to about 570–560^[600]. Among them were fragments of nine Naukratite cups, none of them particularly early examples of the style, and of one vase in what seems to be a late development from it. The decoration of the Vroulia Naukratite seems moreover to correspond to one of the earlier phases of the Milesian (?) pottery from the same site.

The Vroulia evidence is confirmed by that of the Naukratite chalice (fig. 15) unearthed at Rhitsona just at the time when Vroulia was being excavated by Kinch. The vase, which is almost complete, belongs to a late phase of the style^[601]. Fill ornaments have almost disappeared. Red and incisions are abundantly used for details. The vase was found with some hundreds of others in a single interment grave that cannot be dated much after 550 and maybe a little before that date^[602]. A Naukratite vase cannot have been made to order for a Boeotian funeral. The Rhitsona chalice by itself renders it practically certain that the making of Naukratite ware at Naukratis began long before the accession of Amasis.

Finally at Berezan on the Black Sea the Russian excavators report that in 1909 Naukratite pottery was found along with Rhodian (= Milesian), Fikellura and Clazomenae wares in the lowest stratum of the excavations, which they date seventh to sixth century, whereas Attic pottery of the middle of the sixth century (especially Kleinmeister kylikes) first appears in a higher stratum (sixth to fifth century B.C.)^[603].

In the face of all this evidence it becomes highly probable that Naukratite pottery began to be made before the end of the seventh century^[604]. It is against all likelihood to suppose that the first thing the Greek settlement at Naukratis did was to start a large pottery, which proceeded at once to turn out a highly original kind of ware. And in point of fact we have seen that the finds include a good quantity of an earlier style of pottery, that takes us back well into the reign of Psamtek. We have seen too that this pottery, which is one of the starting-points of the Naukratite style, is probably Milesian.

A further proof of early Milesian influence at Naukratis remains to be mentioned. At one spot in the excavations literally hundreds of vases were found with incised dedications to Apollo^[605]. Some ten of these speak of the Milesian Apollo, the god to whom Necho the son of Psammetichus made an offering after the victory over Josiah at Megiddo^[606]. The Milesian sherds that it is natural to put into the seventh century come largely from this spot. Herodotus tells us that the Milesians did not have quarters in the Hellenium but occupied a separate temenos. The spot where these sherds and inscriptions were found is unquestionably the site of this temenos. As to why the Milesians thus kept apart there can be little doubt that Petrie gives the right explanation. It means that they were there before the cities that shared the Hellenium^[607]. The finds show that their occupation was already on a considerable scale before the end of the seventh century.

Two other cities had separate temene, namely Samos and Aegina^[608]. The Samian has been identified by a find of sherds dedicated to the Samian goddess Hera. But there is from this temenos no mass of pottery that takes us back into the first half of the sixth century or the second of the seventh, as there is from the Milesian. “Fikellura” ware that is very possibly Samian^[609] and that may date from about 600 B.C. was indeed found, but not in quantities like the Milesian^[610]. The scanty finds may be due to Arab farmers who had removed much earth from the Samian temenos before the excavations began^[611]. But the finds as we have them, with inadequate accounts of the exact spots they come from, hardly make it likely that the Samian temenos was an early establishment^[612]. True Herodotus^[613] tells the tale of a Samian ship that set sail for Egypt between 643 and 640 B.C. But it got to Spain by mistake, a fact which suggests an imperfect knowledge of the route it wished to take. A Samian nymph appears in a fragment of the “Foundation of Naukratis” of Apollonius Rhodius^[614]. But we only know that she once went to a festival at Miletus and was there carried off by Apollo.

Of the Aeginetan temenos no trace has been found. It might be suggested that the Aeginetans had not the habit of inscribing their dedications. But the absence of proto-Corinthian finds favours the view that this temenos was not unearthed. It is idle therefore to speculate on its date and importance^[615].

In any case we have good reason for interpreting the written texts in the sense that the Milesians’ Fort made way for the Greek Naukratis during the reign of Psammetichus. This is historically important. The Milesians’ Fort may have been a fortified trading station^[616]: but it never had the commercial importance of Naukratis. If, as we have just seen good evidence for believing, Greek Naukratis was already a considerable place before Psamtek’s death and owed the fact to Psamtek himself, then there is an increased probability that Diodorus is right when he says that Psamtek owed his throne to commercial dealings with traders from across the sea.

There are two further points in which the Naukratis excavations bear out the texts that support this view. Hogarth has shown that South Naukratis was the Egyptian quarter, and that it goes back probably to before King Psamtek’s reign. We have seen too that as early as 688 B.C. the Greek merchant Herostratos is said to have made offerings at Naukratis in the temple of Aphrodite. There is only one spot at Naukratis that compares with the Milesian temenos for early Greek finds, and that spot is marked by a long series of dedications to Aphrodite^[617] incised or sometimes painted on the pottery, which includes Milesian, Naukratite, Ionian buff and black, and other seventh and sixth century wares. The site of this temenos has a significance that seems to have been overlooked. It lies just on the borders^[618] of the black stratum area that appears to mark the limits of the original Egyptian town. When excavations were resumed in 1899 there was discovered in the North part of the town a second Aphrodite shrine forming a sort of side chapel to the real Hellenium^[619]. The earliest finds from this Northern Aphrodite shrine date from the earlier part of the fifth century^[620]. May not the position of the earlier and more southerly shrine be due to the fact that it was founded before the occupants of the Milesians’ Fort had moved to Naukratis and established a Greek quarter there? In other words, may we not see in it a confirmation of Polycharmus^[621] when he speaks of a Greek as offering an image of Aphrodite in a temple of that goddess at Naukratis in 688 B.C.? The fact that the Aphrodite site was not burnt is no proof that it did not form part of the earliest settlement. The men from the Milesians’ Fort who defeated Inaros may well have spared the Greek sanctuary when they burnt the rest.

The voyage of Herostratos was held in remembrance at Naukratis because of a statuette of Aphrodite that he dedicated in her temple as a thank-offering for having saved him during a storm. The statuette was a span long and of archaic workmanship, and had been bought by him at Paphos during the voyage. When the storm arose the people on board had betaken themselves to this eikon and prayed it to save them. The goddess heard their prayers and gave them a sign by suddenly filling the ship with a most fragrant perfume. The story is discussed by Gardner^[622] in his chapter on the statuettes from the temenos of Aphrodite, which include a number that may represent the Paphian goddess. But he makes no reference to the statuette that probably has the closest bearing on the tale. The upper half is of the normal draped female type, but the lower shows simply the form of an alabastron. The whole is a perfume vase^[623]. This particular example (fig. 16) cannot be earlier than the end of the sixth century. The type however is shown both by the style and the context of other examples to go back to the seventh century, and probably to the earlier part of it. The home of the type is thought by Poulsen^[624] to be Cyprus. An object that combined the functions of an eikon and a smelling-bottle might indeed work miracles in a storm. It is tempting to believe that such was in fact the image that saved Herostratos. The miracle takes place just at the period when this type of figurine was started. If we are right in associating the two, then we are further justified in thinking that Polycharmus may have had some solid grounds for his dating as well as for the rest of his account.

The other point concerns the large plain jars that were found on the site^[625]. Many of these are of Egyptian forms. But others, of which one is shown in fig. 17, are unmistakably Greek. This jar was found in the burnt deposit in the South end of the city, which represents the earlier Egyptian settlement on the site^[626]. These large jars were used by the Greeks for the transport of wine, oil and the like^[627]. In jars such as these Sappho’s brother must have brought to Naukratis the wines of Lesbos, and they must have figured largely in the cargoes brought by Greeks and Phoenicians^[628] to Psamtek in exchange for the cargoes that they received from Psamtek in the days when he was building up his power^[629].

To sum up our conclusions about Naukratis: texts and excavations confirm and supplement one another to the effect that there was an Egyptian settlement from the beginning of the seventh century, that Greek traders found their way there almost from the first, and that about the middle of the seventh century the Greek trading settlement became of considerable importance^[630] through the removal to it of the occupants of the Milesians’ Fort^[631]. Finally about 569 B.C. we have the concentration in the city of all the Greek traders in Egypt.

The Greek traders were concentrated by Amasis in Naukratis as a concession to the Egyptians with whom they had grown more and more unpopular owing to their influence and success. Amasis had risen to power as the leader of an anti-Greek agitation^[632], and, as Petrie pointed out^[633], the concentration was an anti-Greek move^[634]. But Amasis cleverly contrived that it should be not unpopular, but even the reverse, with the Greeks. Naukratis as a monopoly city enjoyed an immense reputation during Amasis’ long and prosperous reign. "contrasted with its position under Psammetichus." But the Amasis tradition cannot conceal the fact that the time when Greek traders got the freest welcome in Egypt was that of Psammetichus, when Greek hoplites were being employed to establish the Saite dynasty as rulers of all Egypt.

In the early days of Psammetichus, when he was overthrowing the dodecarchy, his Greek merchants and his Greek soldiers probably had their headquarters together, in the Milesians’ Fort. At Naukratis the military element does not appear. From about 650 B.C. till shortly after the accession of Amasis in 570 the Greek mercenaries are found quartered in a place called The Camps at Daphnae on the most Easterly (Pelusian) arm of the Nile^[635]. The history of the transition from the Milesians’ Fort to Daphnae is obscure^[636]; but in a broad sense there can be little doubt that the Fort was as much the parent of the camp at Daphnae as of the emporium at Naukratis. Naukratis and Daphnae, the Greek emporium and the Greek camp, were alike essential to the Saite Pharaohs, and both had plainly gone far in their development and organization early in Psamtek’s reign.

How closely the two were associated may be realized from the consistent attitude of the Saite Pharaohs towards another element of the population. The Ionian and Carian bronze men were not the first mercenaries to form the basis of a Pharaoh’s power. The XXIInd and XXIIIrd dynasties (c. 943–735 B.C.) had rested their power on their mercenaries from Libya. These Libyan mercenaries had developed into a caste of professional soldiers and were still in the land^[637]. It is noteworthy that no Saite, with one possible exception nearly 100 years after Psamtek’s accession, ever attempted to use them either for securing or for maintaining his power. Mallet notes that for the time before Psammetichus the monuments often show commanders of Libyan mercenaries bearing high titles, but that from his reign onwards there is no similar instance^[638].

Meyer^[639] is probably right in suspecting that this warrior class (?????) formed Psamtek’s bitterest opponents. Eventually a large body of them deserted and took service with the king of Ethiopia, and Psamtek seems to have made no determined effort to prevent them^[640]. The one exceptional case in which the Libyan warrior class may possibly have placed a Saite on the throne is that of Amasis (570–526 B.C.)^[641], who overthrew his predecessor Apries (589–570) by leading the native population against the Greek mercenaries^[642]. But, as Herodotus tells us, he was soon driven to “become a philhellene^[643].” Petrie thinks that Amasis was converted under pressure of the Persian peril, and in support of this view quotes the alliance of Amasis with Croesus^[644], Polycrates^[645], and the Greek Battus of Cyrene^[646], as also his friendship with Delphi^[647].

This point of foreign policy no doubt had its weight in the years that saw the rise of Cyrus and his overthrow of Media in 549 B.C., Lydia in 546, Babylon in 538 (?). But it was not the cause of his conversion. Amasis became Pharaoh in 570. In the sixth year of his reign he made an edict that contained the following words: “Let the Ouinin (= Ionians) be given place of habitation in the lands of the nome of Sais. Let them take to their use ships and firewood. Let them bring their gods^[648].” Long therefore before the rise of Persia Amasis had realized how impossible it was to maintain his position otherwise than by coming to an understanding both with the Greek merchants and the Greek mercenaries. Philhellenism was in fact an essential part of Saite policy. Necho (610–594 B.C.), the son and successor of Psammetichus I, sent offerings to Apollo at Branchidae (Miletus) after his victory over Josiah of Judah and the Syrian fleet^[649]. Psammetichus II (594–589) died probably as a child: to his reign are probably to be assigned the Abu Symbel inscriptions^[650] scratched by Greek soldiers on monuments far up the river by Elephantine. The people of Elis are said to have appealed to him or his government on a point respecting the Olympian games^[651]. Apries (589–570), who fell foul of his Greek troops, had 30,000 Ionians and Carians under arms^[652]. A small Greek vase found at Corinth^[653] has the cartouche of Apries. It is in the form of a helmeted head (fig. 18). The vase is of faience (so-called). It was probably made at Naukratis, perhaps in Petrie’s scarab factory, and gives us a contemporary picture of one of Apries’ Greek mercenaries, or at least of the top part of his equipment.

Amasis accordingly became a friend of the Greeks and remained so till he died. The Greeks reciprocated his friendship. The feelings of the Naukratite traders towards him are reflected plainly enough in the pages of Herodotus^[654]. The Greek mercenaries supported him loyally to the end of his long reign, and in spite of the treachery of their commander Phanes they fought gallantly at Pelusium in 525 B.C. when Psammetichus III, the last of the Saites, was overthrown by the Persians. Under the military rule of Persia the Libyan warrior class recovered its old position^[655].

Thus we have seen the Saite dynasty rising to power by means of Greek merchandise and Greek mercenaries and maintaining its power by the same means. Its general policy follows the same lines as that of the tyrannies that sprang up at this time all over the Greek world. Herodotus with his usual insight recognized this fact when he put into his history the story of the friendship between Amasis and the Samian tyrant Polycrates. Amasis was probably not the first of the Saites to have a Greek tyrant for his friend. Cordial relations with Thrasybulus, the tyrant of Miletus, are suggested by Necho’s offerings to the Milesian Apollo, and the friend of Thrasybulus must have been also the friend of the Corinthian tyrant Periander. It has often been assumed, and not without reason, that Periander’s successor was called Psammetichus from some personal connexion with the lord of Sais.

Psammetichus I is the first individual known to have borne that name. It is possible therefore that it may have had some special appropriateness to his own or his father’s career^[656]. One of the most probable interpretations of the name is “man (vendor) of mixing bowls.” The choice seems to lie between this interpretation and “man (vendor) of mixed wine” (i.e. wine mixed with spices, etc.). Which of these is to be preferred depends on the interpretation of the root mtk^[657]. In hieratic writing the phonetic symbols are sometimes followed by a “determinative” symbol or pictograph, placed at the end to prevent misunderstanding. The determinative for mtk is the picture of a vase, as seen for instance in Rylands Library Demotic Papyri, p. 201. The vase has a barrel or pear-shaped body, narrow neck, and broad flat mouth, vase. The particular shape must not be pressed, and the picture may be meant to denote not the vase but its contents. But it must mean one or the other^[658]. Griffith thinks it denotes the contents, his reasons being these^[659]: mtk is a Coptic root meaning “mix” and has a Hebrew equivalent meaning “mixture” (wine mixed). This meaning “seems to fit all requirements^[660],” i.e. it suits the story of the libation which led Psammetichus to become king^[661], and also the tales of the low and bibulous (f???p?t??) origin of Amasis^[662]. Griffith’s interpretation rests ultimately on the philological point, and on the assumption that the root in Egyptian must have precisely the same meaning as in Coptic and Hebrew. I am indebted to the writer himself for the information that this is not always the case. Apart from philology “mixed wine” may suit all requirements^[663]: but does it do so quite as well as “mixing bowl”? The whole point of the story of Psammetichus’ libation depends not on the wine but its receptacle. On either interpretation however it is sufficiently remarkable that the ruler who is said to have risen to power by trade should have had so mercantile a name. Griffith does not forget the possibility that the name may have been the source of the stories^[664]. The two possibilities are not mutually exclusive. A merchant prince may be proud of his origin: but that fact will not always prevent other people from telling good unofficial stories about his early days.